Beyond Dobris: a continent commits to change.

In June 1991, 36 of Europe's environment ministers and deputies met at Czechoslovakia's Dobris Casde, near Prague, to discuss the environmental status of their nations. During the unprecedented conference, the ministers called for the preparation of a comprehensive report on Europe's extensive environmental problems. In August 1995, the European Environment Agency Task Force (a branch of the European Commission) published Europe's Environment: The Dobris Assessment, a 676-page review of the continent's environment. Although the EC has published several environmental reports since 1972, the Dobris Assessment is the first to combine information from central and eastern Europe with that of western Europe and to place European environmental problems in a global context. Relying on data from a wide range of international, regional, and local sources, the report confirms what the environment ministers had broadly discussed: the environment in many parts of the continent, especially but not exclusively in Central and Eastern Europe, is of alarmingly poor quality. Due in part to the elucidation of these problems by the Dobris report and a number of previous reviews, Europe's leaders are beginning to adopt transnational approaches for addressing the continent's woes. Although Europe has been notoriously slow to address environmental problems on a continentwide basis, recent action by the European Union's environment ministers may have created the foundation for broadbased improvements to environmental quality. In June 1995, the ministers adopted a series of directives aimed at integrating environmental standards among the 15 EU member countries. Ministers reached agreement on common standards for pollution prevention, air and water quality, endangered species trade, and hazardous materials control. The directives provide the strongest environmental legislation that Europe has ever seen.